


Refusing to Exhale

by commas_and_ampersands



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Gen, Sailor Moon Stars
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-30 01:48:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16755553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/commas_and_ampersands/pseuds/commas_and_ampersands
Summary: She holds her breath, and she waits for Usagi to break.





	Refusing to Exhale

**Author's Note:**

> Written March 2009; revised January 2018.

Every time Rei turns to look at Usagi, she feels like she's underwater, holding her breath.  She watches her princess fall apart from afar, and she can do nothing but wait beneath the cold waves.  She holds her breath, and she waits for Usagi to break.  For once, she cannot save her.  
  
"You're tense."  
  
She turns, and is both surprised and not surprised to see Taiki standing there.  His eyes are trampled lilacs not-quite-glaring down at her behind scratched glasses.  She stares at him for a moment, and her eyes are as hard as his.  She wonders why she never realized that Taiki's gravity could mirror her own.  Then again, set against Seiya's confidence and Yaten's arrogance, its little surprise she overlooked him.

Coincidentally, Mamoru, who directly or indirectly is crushing the heart out of her best friend in his absence, could possess all of these qualities in equal measure.  She's not sure what that means, if it means anything at all.

"If you listen to Minako, I'm always tense," Rei finally answers, retreating to easier ground.  She might admire Taiki for his music, for his fame and ambition, but admiration is not trust.  
  
Taiki does not smile.  "I find it best not to listen to Minako on anything of import."  
  
Rei sours, and any admiration she felt is so much dust now.  "You don't even know her."  
  
"Of course not.  She's too busy putting on a performance."  His lilac eyes flick towards Usagi.  "She's not the only one, but Minako is undoubtedly the better actress."  
  
Rei's willing to concede both points but unwilling to revise her ill opinion.  "She misses her boyfriend."  
  
"That much is terribly obvious."  
  
Rei grits her teeth.  "Do you have a point?  Because if you don't, I have better things to do."  
  
He raises his eyebrow.  She imagines burning it off.  "What?  Watching her?"  
  
"Yes," Rei snaps before she can stop her mouth.  
  
He raises the other eyebrow.  If he had a third, she thinks it would be equally arched.  "Why?"  
  
She doesn't know him well, but in an instant, she knows he will not leave her unless she gives him a satisfactory answer.  He's not earned it, and she doesn't owe him.  It would almost be worth denying it for those reasons alone, but for once, she wants to be left alone more than she wants to win an argument.  The cost of constantly holding her breath, waiting, knowing it could all be for nothing.

She cannot say anything less than the truth, but the truth is so complicated and so veiled and so desperately important that for a moment, she doesn't have the words.  But she finds them anyway.  
  
"I have to save her when she falls.  I have to be there to put her back together."  
  
Something in his gaze softens a fraction.  "Because you can't keep her from going to pieces."  
  
"No.  I can't."  
  
"You're too busy holding your breath."  
  
Rei swallows her gasp.  He can't know.  She never said.  But how?

He smiles, but its a joyless thing.  "I wish you better luck than I had."

Then he's gone and left her there, refusing to exhale.


End file.
